Phonological awareness (PA) is closely related to language, working memory, and speech processing, areas in which children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show significant deficits and difficulties. The existing knowledge about PA in children with DLD is quite scattered, which is why the aim of our research was to provide a comprehensive review of the latest literature on this topic and its connection to language domains where children with DLD show impairment.
Following the PRISMA protocol for systematic literature reviews, we reviewed six database platforms with key words, identifying 7,139 potential hits. We also manually reviewed Slovenian publications in selected journals and conference proceedings. Through a process of removing duplicates, screening, and eligibility assessment based on established criteria, we included 76 sources in the analysis, which reported on 65 studies conducted in various languages, involving children with DLD up to the age of 12, with different sample sizes, which used highly heterogeneous sets of test materials to assess PA.
Most studies report that children with DLD achieve significantly poorer results on various tasks testing PA compared to control groups of children of the same age and even younger children with typical language development. Some heterogeneity in performance was observed; certain studies reported greater variability in results and smaller deficits in children with DLD who did not have decoding difficulties. Despite the lack of research and relatively small sample sizes in research groups, a trend appears indicating that children with DLD progress in PA according to similar universal principles (from larger to smaller units of words, from simpler cognitive operations to more complex ones) as children with typical development. However, at least in more complex tasks, they do not reach proficiency levels even by the age of 12. The connection between PA and vocabulary, morphosyntax, and literacy is a relatively under-researched area with somewhat contradictory findings regarding the strength or presence of correlational connections, as well as the predictive value of PA.
Phonological awareness in children with DLD is an area where significant impairment in progress and performance are often observed. To some extent, PA is related to different levels of language and influences, together with other factors (e.g., language ability, working memory, rapid naming), the process of literacy acquisition, but it is not necessarily linked to the co-occurrence of dyslexia.
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